SHULMAN@RED.RUTGERS.EDU.UUCP (08/18/86)
Delphi Mac Digest Monday, 18 August 1986 Volume 2 : Issue 37
Today's Topics:
RE: Medical Uses of a MAC (Re: Msg 11564)
RE: Medical Uses of a MAC (Re: Msg 11634)
RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #97 (Re: Msg 11603)
RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #97 (Re: Msg 11652)
RE: char speed (Re: Msg 577)
RE: char speed (Re: Msg 582)
RE: char speed (Re: Msg 587)
RE: char speed (Re: Msg 577)
RE: char speed (Re: Msg 588)
RE: Paranoia Vindicated (Re: Msg 573)
RE: Paranoia Vindicated (Re: Msg 573)
Apple ][ picture conversion
RE: Apple ][ picture conversion (Re: Msg 11672)
RE: Apple ][ picture conversion (Re: Msg 11714)
Red Ryder peculiarity
Appletalk printing on IWII
RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #98 (Re: Msg 11676)
RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11763)
RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11764)
RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11775)
3 in 1 touch board
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From: PUGDOG (11634)
Subject: RE: Medical Uses of a MAC (Re: Msg 11564)
Date: 11-AUG 23:53 SIG Business
The MAC would be great for typing notes, etc. I have been trying to get
a couple for that use -- for the transcript service.
BUT It is too limited, too isolated, too ~internalized~ to be a serious
business machine.
The screen lacks SIZE, It also lacks color. A machine like th MAC will
be used eventually for teaching such thigs as anatomy, but color is
a NECESSITY.
People can go to the wall and support a machine for all sorts of reasons.
But when people are PAYING you to make the right decision for for them,
and people do pay me, Could you really reccommend th MAC? Could it really
run your business? Can it do everything the IBM does? Interface easily
with printers and peripherals? Etc?
I'd be in a lot of trouble if I reccommended the MAC.
I started this not to draw lines, but rather to be convinced. If you can
show me proof -- ie VENDOR PACKAGES that can do things similar to the
IBM Doctor's Office Manager, or others of that Genre (DOM II is mediocre
at best) I am open for suggestions. People ask about the MAC because they
heard it can do X Y or Z. But then they ask for a "real" heavy duty program.
They aren't around!
I have no choice but to go with an MS-DOS system, or IBM and compatible
systems on a different OP/SYS but they still have the expandibility and
availability of programs and peripherals.
CONVINCE ME. SEND ME NAMES AND ADDRESSES. I will contact the vendors,
and find out more, but I CAN"T FIND THEM.
(Every Doc. I know who has a MAC at home or initially bought one, has
also purchased an AT to move up to... the MAC was just not enough.)
Again, prove me wrong. I need names, numbers, and programs to distribute.
Anything else is simply passion and blowing off steam.
I like the MAC -- for "desktop publishing" -- but so far, NOT for a
medical environment.
-r-
robert s. pataki
computerland
professional systems
medical systems specialist.
(and full time medical student)
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From: LAMG (11647)
Subject: RE: Medical Uses of a MAC (Re: Msg 11634)
Date: 12-AUG 02:41 SIG Business
Again, you're talking about office management systems - I'm just starting to
investigate those so I can't really comment on the suitability or availability
of Mac software there. I do know of a few other physicians in the LA area who
apparently are running Mac office systems - I hope to contact them for the
Medical SIG I'm forming.
As for teaching anatomy, etc. - I'd much prefer the sharp Mac display
in B&W to most color IBM displays I've seen. Actually, I think that
most medical CAI will be done with computer-controlled slides or
videotape, or soon, CDs - even good color graphics displays aren't
detailed enough.
My main point in responding to your comment was to say that there's
much more to Macs in medicine than office management software. I am
an academic radiologist and in my environment there's no need for such
software. There IS a need for a system to use to prepare notes,
presentations, papers and exhibits - the Mac excels at these
functions.
I'll be happy to let you know if I hear of any Mac office software that people
are using successfully.
-Franklin Tessler, M.D. / LAMG
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From: DDUNHAM (11652)
Subject: RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #97 (Re: Msg 11603)
Date: 12-AUG 03:31 Network Digests
> From: m11472%mwvm@mitre.ARPA
> From: Craig DeRose
> Subject: Repainting contents of a window?
> - I've tried the following sequence (and derivatives thereof):
> whenIwantaDialog:
> InvalRect(<defined Rect size of Dialog>)
> GetNewDialog(Id, ... , POINTER(-1))
> DisposDialog(Id,....)
> BeginUpdate(mywindow)
> PaintRect(<defined Rect size of DIalog>)
> EndUpdate(mywindow)
> I get an all Black box.
What PaintRect does is fill a rectangle with the current pattern, which
is black by default.
The easiest way to handle update events is to put all your drawing in
once place, which you call in response to an update event. The toolbox
will handle giving you update events when you open your window, when
dialogs go away, etc. If you need to change part of a window, update
the underlying data structures, then call InvalRect (or InvalRgn) for
the part that changes, in order to keep all drawing in one place in
your program. This may require a redesign of your program, but I
suspect your program will be simpler as a result.
> From: kim@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Salomon)
> Subject: SuperMac Dataframe 20
I don't know much about the Dataframe, but it didn't sound that quiet.
Then, neither does my LoDOWN 20, but I know for a fact that you can get
a long cable and put it in a closet. The LoDOWN has slightly faster
benchmarks, was slightly cheaper, and can fit under the Mac, which was
why I got it. I have no complaints.
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From: MACINTOUCH (11657)
Subject: RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #97 (Re: Msg 11652)
Date: 12-AUG 09:48 Network Digests
NETMAN found that a straight RS232 cable worked fine for extending the distance
between a Bernoulli box and the Mac, even tho the BBox uses the Mac SCSI System
cable. (hook the RS232 between the Mac and the other cable.)
Ric
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From: PEABO (582)
Subject: RE: char speed (Re: Msg 577)
Date: 11-AUG 22:30 Programming Techniques
In my terminal program, I got a substantial increase in speed when I switched
from DrawChar to DrawString. It is more work for the application (especially
then you are emulating various VT-100 attributes like underline and reverse
video that limit the length of the string), but noticeably faster.
peter
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From: JOSEF (587)
Subject: RE: char speed (Re: Msg 582)
Date: 11-AUG 23:03 Programming Techniques
Does that imply that DRAWSTRING uses some shortcut other than DRAWCHAR? And if
the 300 us figure is accurate(and I think it is) then why is it still so tough
to get 9600 baud of out this damn machine?
Joe
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From: PEABO (588)
Subject: RE: char speed (Re: Msg 587)
Date: 12-AUG 02:13 Programming Techniques
Yes, DrawChar has all the overhead of taking a trap for every
character, whereas (I presume) DrawString just has to call a
subroutine. I haven't verified that except by the observation that it
is faster.
The trouble with either one on the Mac is the calculations required by the
processing of font info. Even though Monaco 9 is not a proportionate width
font, the software still has to index into the font table, do width
calculations, and call copybits to get the character out there on the screen.
I'm pretty sure that 4800 bps is within reason using DrawString in most
circumstances, but scrolling will tend to degrade that.
By the way, an IBM PC (even a PC AT) doesn't do 9600 either, even with
character generation in ROM, unless you bypass the standard operating
system calls and use ROM dependent BIOS calls or perhaps write
directly to screen memory.
peter
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From: DDUNHAM (593)
Subject: RE: char speed (Re: Msg 577)
Date: 12-AUG 03:33 Programming Techniques
#1 QUED does not use TextEdit.
#2 TextEdit (and QUED) probably uses DrawText, which would have a lot less call
overhead.
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From: JOSEF (594)
Subject: RE: char speed (Re: Msg 588)
Date: 12-AUG 12:01 Programming Techniques
I'll give DrawString (or perhaps DrawText, as DDUNHAM points out) a try, see if
it improves things much. It certaintly is comforting (and somewhat surprising)
to find out that the PC can't do it either using standard calls.
On the subject of MAC vs. IBM speed, we did an interesting comparison
at work the other day. We were evaluating Sun micro's workstations as
a possible replacement for our aging(cough,cough) 11/70, and ran a
simple floating point benchmark. Just for kicks we also ran the
benchmark on our respective pc's. After normalizing for different
floating point precision, the Mac turned out to be about TWICE as fast
as my friends AT compatible and even ALMOST AS FAST when he uses his
8087 co-processor! Never could understand why people always accused
the Mac of being so slow. (By the way, the Sun 3 with 68881 co-proc
was about 20 (yes, TWENTY) times faster than the MAC).
Joe
------------------------------
From: JOSEF (586)
Subject: RE: Paranoia Vindicated (Re: Msg 573)
Date: 11-AUG 23:01 Programming Techniques
Lofty:
the LEA instruction definitely loads all 32 bits of the address
register. I even went into TMON and tried a number if different
addresses ranging from $0 to $FFFFFFFF. There is something very
STRANGE going on... Your masking operation should be totally
unneccesary.
Joe
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From: LOGICHACK (592)
Subject: RE: Paranoia Vindicated (Re: Msg 573)
Date: 12-AUG 03:12 Programming Techniques
Lofty:
Am I missing something? Can't you just do a PEA? Also, clearing the high bits
might not be so cool with handles since they are used as memory manager tags.
Paul :)
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From: JIMH (11672)
Subject: Apple ][ picture conversion
Date: 12-AUG 19:05 Programming
I am writing a small program to convert apple ii pictures to mac paint pictures
for our newsletter. before i spend a lot of time and effort adding a real usre
interface to it, i was kind of wondering how many people would be interested,
and what they think it should do? thanks jim
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From: LOGICHACK (11714)
Subject: RE: Apple ][ picture conversion (Re: Msg 11672)
Date: 13-AUG 03:36 Programming
Jim:
This may sound kinda cheesey but have you thought about using ][ in a
Mac to get the graphics? The program supports cut and paste (unlike
Mac+ //) and I have used it to bring in Apple Hi Res screens. The
latest (soon to be release) version will be able to read Apple ][
Unidisks directly, eliminating the need for modem xfer of your
software.
On slightly faster hardware, these Apple ][ emulators are great. I use it all
the time to impress hackers.
Paul :)
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From: JIMH (11716)
Subject: RE: Apple ][ picture conversion (Re: Msg 11714)
Date: 13-AUG 03:45 Programming
Paul, i played with one at the chicago show and as a past master of
bit twiddeling the apple ii i was impressed with how deap th e
emulation went. i already have enought of a program to let you use
standard file to select the file, convert it to a o ffscreen bitmap
which is then written to a window on the screen and use fkey 3 to save
it to paint file. but thanks for the idea. jim
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From: JIMH (11675)
Subject: Red Ryder peculiarity
Date: 12-AUG 19:13 Telecommunicating
Had a small problem the solution of which i thought people here might
be interested in. We were transfering apple ii picture files over the
modem to red ryyder using xmodem. the resulting files always
translated into garbage! the problem was that RR was seeing a non mac
bnary file, saying ah this is a text file and you told me to strip
line feeds out of text files. the result was a file on the mac end
that was minus all bytes that happened to be $0A. due to the screwy
screen mapping on the ii the resulted in totally garbaged pictures.
so if you try to download a non mac non text file be warned to go to
xmodem preferneces and tell RR not to strip line feeds! jim
------------------------------
From: MOUSEKETEER (11683)
Subject: Appletalk printing on IWII
Date: 12-AUG 20:18 Bugs & Features
After posting some notes a week or two ago about RR and Silicon Press acting
strangely while printing to an AppleTalked Imagewriter II, I was ready to
call Silicon and ask after having to disable my Appletalk IW card to do some
printing for a recent project. Yesterday in the mail I received a postcard
from Silicon Beach saying they had found several problems the 1.0 release of
Silicon Press, one of which was it not working on the Appletalked IW. 1.1 is
;now available to correct this and a couple of other problems. The update is
freebie, to be had by sending your original disk in with a note containing
a legible return address.
Alf
------------------------------
From: DDUNHAM (11720)
Subject: RE: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #98 (Re: Msg 11676)
Date: 13-AUG 03:48 Network Digests
> From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
> Subject: Re: disc fragmentation
Servant will have some sort of file aliasing. I think the term Andy used was
"proxy icons," which would be on the Servant desktop (or a window) and would
give you easy access to a program, even if the program had to be buried in a
folder.
> From: David A. Levitt <levitt@MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU>
> Subject: ever have problems with Hayden software?
As a matter of fact, I saw MUD at my dealer, just after I ordered it
by mail. There was a long delay, but I did receive it. So I think
"failure to market" is inaccurate. Mishandling, non-payment of
royalties, etc. I can't defend Hayden against.
------------------------------
From: MACLAIRD (11764)
Subject: RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11763)
Date: 14-AUG 20:22 Mousing Around
I don't exactly want to get into the business of delivering these notes, but I
found the Wednesday August 13 session of the Boston Computer Society MacTechGrp
very informative. I remember how much I wanted to hear about the San Francisco
MacWorld Expo, but everyone was probably too busy to report on it. You may not
hear anything else from me this week, but here's this:
The Software and Hardware companies represented were, in order of presentation,
TML Systems, Tom Leonard
Meta Software, David Drucker
Apple Computer, Dan Cochran
Ashton-Tate, Mike Stone, Mike Rosetti
Invention Software, Jack Junni
Jasik Design, Steve Jasik
Levco [sorry, I didn't catch the name]
Tom Leonard previewed his 2.0 version of TML Pascal. It features separate
compilation of units, object output in the MDS format for smart linking of
only those units needed, a source-code listing option, type-casting, universal
parameter types, and Object Pascal extensions for MPW Pascal compatibility.
TML also pre-alpha pre-previewed a smart editor, with all kinds of shortcuts
for the programmer(like parentheses-matching).
Meta Software introduced "Design", which is a graphic tool application. It
allows one to build a variety of data processing designs such as data flow
diagrams or structure charts. A facility was also mentioned that would allow
a c programmer to place his program into such a structure diagram and edit it
there, compiling it by saving the text in a separate file.
In general, Design is very [VERY] menu-intensive. It is difficult to see how
their functions could be described in a procedural language. They do some
interesting things with the interrelationships of text and graphics, and also
have an option of selling source code allowing the purchaser to modify Design
via exit routines.
Dan Cochran breezed through his half-hour MacWorld Expo presentation, and had
a lot to say. He started off by mentioning how Guy Kawasaki [his boss] was on
his honeymoon, Guy's boss was on sabbatical, John Sculley was on vacation, and
how he was ready, willing and able to be chosen acting CEO. To illustrate how
the Apple corporate mentality works, he _did_not_ say that he was afraid that
he would return on Monday to discover that one of his Software Product crew
had taken over the company! Funny how the blind spot hits us, hmm?
Dan indicated that MDS 2.0 would be released "in about a month and a half".
[Any MDS users would be well-advised to get those bug reports in: I'm going
to put mine in, as I am too dependent on token-macros to switch right now.]
The real news Dan brought with him is APDA. The Apple Programmers' and
Developers' Association will now be the central clearinghouse for all software
and possibly hardware which Apple Computer would like to sponsor but which has
no real possibility of being a commercial [read: mass-market] product. This
will solve some problems within his division.
To summarize Dan, he must provide product management for Apple labeled
products, language evangelism, and ensure timely and efficient distribution.
The dealer network is uninterested in low-volume items like software tools and
languages, and he estimated the lead-time as four months to deliver packaged
software to the dealers anyway. Dealers are also unprepared to support serious
development or to even give advice about how to start. Dan said he is prepared
to support budding developers of languages, for instance (yes, he did say $$
but no, he did not say venture capital [in those words]).
The Apple ][ tools eventually began to be marketed through Software Licensing,
since nobody else wanted to. The Macintosh division, before the merger, had a
different approach: if you want to mail something, go find a mail house no one
else at Apple is using, and let them do it. Dan said it confused even him.
APDA has been conceived as a central source for all such mailings. They will
give a nominal license to Apple Computer, Inc., and have been chartered to put
the products out with a similar pricing policy. There will be some exceptions,
and Dan said specifically "a c compiler" will be one of them. This is because
Apple owes the companies who invested early on in compilers, and even the beta
versions of Apple's own compilers will neither be free or close to it.
The A.P.P.L.E. co-op (in Washington) was the genesis of APDA. It now will be
sponsored and supported by Apple Computer, Inc. There will be a quarterly
newsletter and catalog, update bulletins, and Tools&Languages resource guides.
The products will be Apple Computer products, Technical books and manuals, and
third-party products as well. Dan encouraged those with applications that did
not quite qualify as consumer products to consider the possibility of APDA
publishing it. [He also encouraged commercial applications to publish there,
but I took that with a grain of salt.]
In particular, preliminary notes, draft manuals, technical notes, Beta-test
products will now be APDA products. This will include the Supplement, the
Smalltalk-80 for the Macintosh, and other products which are not suitable for
retail distribution.
Ordering will be available through an 800- number, CI$, and AppleLink. An
APDA member may use a credit card to subscribe by category. Joining is done
by application, basically to protect Apple as members agree not to redistribute
this material, especially overseas. If requested, the software license for a
particular product will be sent before a member orders that product.
Dan was in fine form, and great wit, but the highlight of the evening was most
likely an accident. His closing remark was "I have great expectations, and I
hope the phones are ringing off the hook"; of course the phone down the hall
had to ring half-way through that sentence!
Ashton-Tate previewed DBASE/Mac, a very powerful-appearing tool indeed! Never
mind the bad joke about Messrs. Rosetti and Stone, DBASE/Mac allows one to
click around the files, and comes close to that goal of defining the structure
of the file by using it. I'm impressed! but as a Database veteran I can guess
that the overhead of all the functionality will make very large files very
slow or cumbersome. I didn't see any reorganization/backup capability, but a
procedure language complete down to the Arctangent function was introduced.
Steve Jasik ran through the latest version of MacNosy, and premiered a Debugger
which will have ROM tables ready and willing to display. Worried about that
WindowRecord's refCon? just point-> and click!
Steve was using a Levco Prodigy which he seemed to like but also seemed to be
troubled by the price. The demo of the Prodigy which followed was impressive,
to say the least. Ever wonder what 4 Megabytes of main memory running at 16MHz
would be like? with a 32-bit data path and a floating-point coprocessor? When
a one meg RAM disk was put into action, it became pretty awesome. All in all,
it's probably worth the $6995 asking price, and you can have their 20 megabyte
internal "Overdrive" added for a mere $995 on top of that.
Oh yes, the Prodigy does provide a compatibility mode in case any Macintosh
software won't run under it. All in all, Levco seems to be interested in
delivering value for value; at least their products work and their prices have
a semblance of good conscience.
Good night, Chet.
_Laird
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From: PEABO (11775)
Subject: RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11764)
Date: 15-AUG 02:31 Mousing Around
Thanks, Laird, that was a pretty good summary of the meeting.
The Levco Prodigy was demonstrated by the famed, hyperkinetic, Dwayne
Maxwell of Levco. It's too fast for most mortals <grin>.
Something you failed to mention (and might better be found in DevSIG
anyway) ... Steve Jasik compared "MacNosy Part II, the Debugger" to
Steve Capps' Discipline program saying that "MacNosy had extended the
concept of Discipline to Bondage" and proceeded to pull a nine foot
whip out of his travelling bag. The icon for his new debugger is (of
course) a coiled whip. I'm glad I'm not a bug in a Macintosh
application ...
peter
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From: MACLAIRD (11777)
Subject: RE: MacTechGrp summary (Re: Msg 11775)
Date: 15-AUG 05:41 Mousing Around
I forgot to describe Invention Software's presentation of their Pascal
and C Extenders. These are (as they took great pains to expound) more
than just a set of canned routines, but procedures allowing a
programmer the freedom to concentrate on programming rather than
manipulating the details of the computer.
Unfortunately, you'll have to learn the details of the routines, but they do
seem to work, and the fellows who wrote them are I am sure having a good time
using them, and dreaming up new ones by the by
_Laird
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From: MACINFO1NORM (11773)
Subject: 3 in 1 touch board
Date: 15-AUG 01:53 Hardware & Peripherals
I would like to know the cost and performance of the 3 in 1 touch board? I may
be interested in purchasing one but would like to hear from someone or others
that has one installed and has been using it. Is it a good performer? Also I
have a Micah Interanal, will it be compatable with a an internal hard
disk?? ......Norm....
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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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